My THT build in Piano finish - Page 3

There is no such thing as "near field event horizon", it's a made up term that doesn't mean anything. That's marketing. It gets people interested and it's working, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion.

I do agree that it's going to backfire, but it will backfire in places like this, not in musician's forums.

It doesn't make Leland an acoustical engineer. Neither are Harley or Mike. I'm not saying that they're not good sounding cabs, and I'm certainly willing to accept the judgements of those who have heard them in that respect. But the claims made about the vortex thing might not stand up to scrutiny. I know that Leland, Harley and Mike don't have the background to make that assessment. Duke might, but then again, he might not.
I recall, not fondly, my first patent application. I was sure I had something really new, so I filed. A few months later I received from the patent office a copy of prior art, for a patent issued in 1955, that was for all intents and purposes identical to my 'revolutionary' concept. My only condolence was that what I had independently figured out was done 30 years earlier by the legendary James Novak, so I was at least following in some very worthy footsteps. My $800 lesson learned was to do a thorough search before assuming any idea is truly new. You'd be amazed how some of the patents issued as far back as 1917 are still relevant today, and how many 'new' concepts aren't so new after all.

It looks like we're back in 1980-something. I used to think these Polk speakers looked so cool, never heard a pair. "Dimensional Array" does sound suspiciously like "Manipulated Vortex Waveguide" in a new-age sense.




Edited by imagic - 12/1/12 at 1:51pm

Bill,
Good points as always.

It's impossible to even guess without knowing what's going on inside the box. But I will guarantee this, it does have a tuning frequency and there's nothing in there that can't be simulated and explained in current popular terminology. (In other words, no need to make up new mysterious cool sounding lingo.)

I readily admit they MIGHT be doing something unconventional but that doesn't excuse the made up terminology or the absurd claims of not being tuned. I also readily admit that even the big boys on the commercial scene are guilty of this type of marketing gibberish, but this is marketing, not science.

they claim there is no force tuning like in bass-reflex design.
in other words the side slots on this picture do not act as tuning ports.

I don't care what they claim, show me a diagram of the internal workings and I'll simulate it. Then there won't be any more speculations or claims (here), just a black and white graph which the marketing dept is free to describe in any way they like for advertising purposes.

I understand you position and think it's a reasonable one. I just wanted to clarify the claim. forget about the event horizon thing. what's stated above is an easily falsifiable claim. one does not have to be a trained acoustical engineer to prove it wrong. And if this claim can actually withstand the scrutiny, then maybe the whole thing is something worth looking into after all. IMHO.
Edited by zheka - 12/3/12 at 11:45am

This is getting way OT.

Who cares what this 'break through' technology thingy claims to be or NOT to be.

Once the thing comes out, we'll know EXACTLY what it is.

Now, let's get back to this piano finish THT build shall we?

Sorry for the OT, I'm out.

Is it just me, or does the THT look a bit like the Kaa'ba?

Black piano finishes is pure sex.

Kudos to those folks who can make such things happen.

That is all.

It takes time and effort to do a perfect black job, but it is attainable at home. Preparation is 95% of the work, the rest is having good materials, and the patience to do the job right. You also need to have a fairly dust free environment, but that's not that hard to accomplish.

I heard the more coats you put on the deeper the finish becomes. Is this true? If so, how many coats would it normally take to get a nice deep finish?

The more coats you apply, the thicker the coating, nothing more, nothing less. All coatings have a design thickness, too thick and you will have issues, the same as too thin an application. If you plan to sand and polish, apply more of the coating, so that you end up at the specified thickness after sanding and buffing.

I think what you mean when you say "deep" is the distinctness of image. ( D.O.I. )


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinctness_of_image

Good materials and good prep can get you 99% of the way, but if you want a true 'mirror' finish, you need to carefully wetsand and polish the applied coating.

This is an example of a fender I sprayed with RM-BASF UNO-HD polyurethane, this was an as sprayed finish. ( no sand and polish )





Outside, untaped the chrome.

as i understand it, there are many factors that need to be right...prep, product, gun, air pressure, technique, environment, etc. just to get started.

mr. hurd, just out of curiousity have you ever tried zaino? i'm not exactly sure how it works (whether it was just filling in micro abrasions or had some sort of optical property to it), but it really made a couple of my cars "pop" in a way that no other product did.

http://www.zainostore.com/

Yes, there are many factors that affect the finish, temperature is one of the major factors, as well as the viscosity of the material, the fluid tip size, and the air pressure.

I have never tried zaino... the only wax I use is called Butterwax.

You use more coats primarily to fill the pores and hide the grain. Even after using a filler it can take a dozen or more coats to get it right, and most of what you put on you sand off anyway. A deep finish isn't one that's thick, it's one that's first perfectly smooth, and then perfectly polished.

If you use a dozen coats, you either don't know what you are doing, or lack proper prep. There shouldn't be any defects prior to painting.

I see.

For a flawless flat black finish, the steps are pretty easy.
1. 3 nice coats of high build primer. Block with 120 then finish in 220 (there won't be much primer left after that)
2. 2 more coats of primer - block with 220 finish in 320
3. Spray 1 nice even coat of sealer
4. Spray your base
5. 3 even medium coats of clear - block with 600 (blocking will take off 1-2 coats of the clear)
6. 2-3 coats of clear, block with 800-1500 and power polish with the proper polisher and pad and polish.

Done and done. you will have proper mil thickness in your clear once it's all blocked and polished.

With the proper air tools and some bake lights or an oven, you can have this knocked out in a day, no problem. At work we get all sorts of crazy crap to paint. The last dumb thing I did was a Zamboni! lol


Mike, You know as well as I do that there are things that get missed and not everyone does things the same way. You don't have to give Bill the as to how he does it. Showing a rounded fender that looks as it should is not impressive I'm afraid. We both know bikes are pretty easy to paint. Lets see a full sized trucks fiberglass hood look like a mirror, then I'd be impressed.

No problem.

That looks great but that is not even close to a mirror finish even if you cut and polished the entire thing (which would SUCK). That is what you should have showed in the first place though. A much harder job than a bikes fender.

It's a truck hood.... not a show car, as well the lights in the shop make it look worse than it actually is. It was also sprayed in a garage without proper make up air, temperature control, etc. I can put out a great finish if I have a booth at my disposal, not having one makes things quite a bit more difficult.

Well, I did say a fiber glass truck hood with mirror finish, though I meant a pickup truck not a semi LOL . I'm sure you know how much they suck to get just right. I'm lucky that I don't have to do any body work, I let my minions do all that crap. The funny part is about the semi hood, those semi guys are more picky that show car guys most of the time! Those guys are nuts!

I know what you mean about an aftermarket 'glass hood... I blocked one for a friend and sprayed it when I did a complete on his Camaro.... between all the rounds of blocking the gellcoat, filling pinholes in the gellcoat, and priming, I had 11 hours of prep just on the hood.

Looks awesome OP!

thanks n8 and mr. hurd. if you were limited to rattle cans (i know, i know, less than ideal) and wanted to get a reasonably good black mirror finish, how would this change? also, what causes the dreaded orange peal? too thick of a coat that dries too fast or something else?

When you can get a decent spray gun at Harbor Freight for less than $10, why would you even consider spray-bombs? By the time you bought enough spray-bombs to do the job properly, you coulda bought this gun, the paint, the thinner, a respirator, and had some $$$ to put towards a compressor.

Seriously - I picked up one of these for $9.99 with a coupon a few years back. After seeing what PassingInterest was able to do with his and a bit of prodding from him to give it a shot, I figured that I could try it for spraying my Jeep's axles, suspension arms, and bumpers (my Jeep is not show-quality, I get it muddy on purpose and have been known to run into trees or rocks on occasion). My results with simple oil-based RustOleum (thinned for spraying) from Lowes blew me away. My skills with the gun are the limiting factor, and those are improving rapidly.

I liked the results enough I clipped the last coupon I saw and went and got another one.

I use spray-bombs for little stuff like brackets and touch-ups. A full cabinet? No way.

As Lil'Mike said, you can get good results from the $10 Harbor Freight gun.
I used it on these enclosures. This is straight off the gun, no polishing or buffing.




Here is a link to the build thread, if it helps anyone regarding spraying.

Also, buried deep in my Howitzer build here at AVS is an evaluation of that gun along with some tips on setting up a spray gun.
I hope this helps someone.